Note Back to Main Text — Chapter IV

These, no doubt, were among the germs of the collection of ballads in six little volumes, which, from the handwriting, had been begun at this early period, and which is still preserved at Abbotsford. And it appears that at least as early a date must be ascribed to another collection of little humorous stories in prose, the Penny Chap-books, as they are called, still in high favor among the lower classes in Scotland, which stands on the same shelf. In a letter of 1830[58] he states that he had bound up things of this kind to the extent of several volumes, before he was ten years old.